Embrace Food, Embrace Life

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Hi! I'm Andrea and I live and play in Colorado. A few things about me: I work in the Craft Beer Industry, I'm a recovering cardio addict and a beginner lifter, and I love food (and beer, clearly). This is my space to chat about all those things so grab a snack or a cool one (or both) and join in.

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October 2nd, 2009: let me pencil you in

Hi gang! Whoa what a busy busy day this girl had yesterday! Whew! Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?

First before Birbigs I made us a little snacky-poo plate. Since we had lunch so later, neither of us were super hungry.

Sliced green apple

Raisins

Pistachios

Sharp cheddar

Colby-jack

The back plate had:

Kashi crackers

7 grain pretzel sticks

Apricot preserves

Mmm mmmm!

Birbigs proved to be a long night and this girl was worn out by the time we got back home! The show was supposed to start at 8pm but started about 15 minutes after that. Which is normal because people are always late getting to their seats. Then the warm-up act came out and it was Geoff Tate from Cincinnati and he was alright. He had his funny moments but wasn’t continually funny. Then we had a 20 minute or so intermission. What the what?!

By 9pm Birbigs finally came out and his set was fantastic! And it lasted for an hour and a half. I know! There was a kid in the audience though. Someone thought it would be a great idea to bring their 10 year old and he was smack in the middle of the front row. When Birbigs asked him who he was there with, the kid said his dad. Birbigs asked how old his dad was and the kid replied, “58!” And Birbigs was like, “Okay I’m just going to leave that one alone right there.”

We got out of the parking garage easy peasy and made it back home in record time. And I heated us up some pasta and had a glass of red. Then I crashed out in bed hardcore!

Friday morning I was up bright and early to get my day going. It was pouring rain and so that meant no run before all my meetings this morning. No worries though because since my eats ended up being so weird and staggered yesterday, not running was a good thing.

This is where we’re going to start playing some pretend! Because there were times I didn’t have my camera or could not take a picture, so you’ll have to pretend to see something.

I started the morning off with some coffee and breakfast.

A yogurt mess with vanilla Oikos, apple, and granola. Mmm mmmm!

Then I got dressed and high-tailed it over to Dublin to meet with Inggrie to talk about the farmer’s market and local business things. At Tehku I had a mug of her new fall blend tea and a chocolate chip scone.

[Pretend you see a steamy mug of tea and the greatest chocolate chip scone right here.]

We chatted for a bit and then Ryan and some of his business partners made their way in because they were in Dublin scouting out locations for a possible new business location. I don’t know if I can mention it, so that’s why it’s vague! :p

I had to cut my meeting with Inggrie short because I had to make my way back home for another meeting! This time with my SF instructor to chat about the dojo (gym/training area/what have you). Scott and I help him out with some stuff and so we needed to discuss things about that and toss around ideas and get things sort of straightened out.

That lasted close to two hours. During that time I had a mug of decaf coffee with milk and sugar.

I had to cut that meeting off too because I had to bust butt back over to downtown Dublin and meet with my very favorite Lawgirl to chat about life and just have some face-to-face girl time.

It was after 2pm by this point and this sister needed some veggies in her STAT because I had not had any yet that day. Lawgirl and I met up at Sugar Inc.

Sugar Inc. is a tea salon and cupcake bakery in downtown Dublin. The cupcakes are all organic! Do we not love this?! And tea with cupcakes is about as cute as it gets, right? Ava is the owner/operator of Sugar Inc. and I first “met” her on Twitter. We’ve been chatting away since then and I’ve been trying to get to her shop for ages! Finally yesterday I had the chance!

I started off with some blueberry (I want to call it heaven but I don’t think that’s the right name!) hot tea. It was delish and came out in my own little cafe to pour.

I also had the Sugar Inc. Signature Salad with spinach, pecans, beets, two wedges of brie, and pine nuts with a cherry vinaigrette on top. Mmmm mmm! It was tasty and light and perfect for a little quick snack. I did not eat the brie because I was cheesed out from yesterday. :p

While Lawgirl and I were chatting, Ava brought us out two mini cupcakes to sample.

Dark chocolate with vanilla icing and a bourbon cupcake with what tasted like a buttery sort of icing. I split both of these with Lawgirl and they were divine! You all know I’m not much of a sweets person but these were fantastic! Just a slight hint of sweetness with a creamy icing, not one that is so overly sweet it makes your teeth ache. This was light and almost just like a flavored cream on top. The small portions were the perfect size for me! And the cupcakes were light and airy, not dense and heavy like some I’ve had.

Ava does an amazing job with her business and her cupcakes are fantastic. Her place also has free wi-fi so you can pickup your laptop and head to Downtown Dublin for an afternoon of relaxing with some tea and eats. Ava also hosts many events at her salon and does catering for parties as well. She blew me away when she said that her business has only been there for 6 months. The amount she’s accomplished in that time is amazing and definitely gets major props for that. Support your local businesses guys and go check out Sugar Inc. and Ava!

There were also some random chats with another patron who was sipping tea and working on her laptop. But like a butthead I forgot to get her name, doh! But HI! *waves* Hope you stopped by my little blog!

Lawgirl and I chatted for about 2 hours or so and then she had to depart. *sniff* I hung out for a bit waiting on my ride to pick me up and chatted with Ava. Then I was whisked back home to see my kid (Rocky) and get him some dinner in his bellah. Scott and I were debating on what to do about dinner and we decided to go to Matt the Miller’s since we hadn’t been there for a while.

That meant back to Dublin! Opposite side of where I had been all day though. I love Dublin! But to live there would be a little too much on my pocketbook. Yikes!

Um, I’m wondering if Matt the Miller’s Tavern is under new management or something because our experience was not like it had been before. In fact it was a little disappointing and I regretted heading out to eat. I hate when that happens!

We started the evening off with a glass of red for me and a beer for Scott. We assumed this beer was going to be big because Scott had it before and the bottle was larger. The description on the menu even said it was going to be 18 and some odd ounces. Nope, just a regular 12oz beer. It was good though! I had a Cab from Chile.

I was hungry because remember by this point my eats were on the super low end of the scale. The soup of the day was black bean and chorizo chili. Yes please! I started off with that.

Mmmmm it was so good with a sweet spicy kick to it! I forgot to ask if chorizo was the only meat in the chili and once I realized that it probably was not, I picked out the beans and handed the rest to Scott.

He finished it for me. He also started off with some clam chowder which was just okay.

Remember how much I love Matt the Miller’s bread? I was wondering where it was because by this point none had arrived at our table. When we asked (because I wanted me some dang bread!) our server said they had bread but it would be $1.

Wha?!

Before it was complimentary and came with a fantastic garlic butter. And you got a huge honkin’ chunk of it.

Not so much any more. A few very thin slices of bread with packaged butter. HMPH! And the bread didn’t come out till we got our main dishes. And I didn’t even take a picture! So you know it wasn’t much to look at.

Scott had the chipotle shrimp flatbread. I had a bite and it was alright. The shrimp were salad shrimp size. Basically non-existent and sparse.

I had the Balsamic salad, small, and I added salmon to it.

Guys this salad was so disappointing. It was supposed to be mixed greens but instead was romaine that looked like it came from a bag. There were a few pieces of something else in there but you could hardly even tell. In no way would I call this a mixed green salad. My salmon was perfectly cooked and loaded down with butter because I forgot to ask for none. I had maybe half of it and picked at my salad.

I ordered a side of sweet potato fries to go with our meals. This was a really small bowl of fries for $3.95. Totally overpriced for the small amount you get.

Here areprevious trips to Matt’s and you can see that the food doesn’t even look the same. What happened? I don’t know but I don’t think I’ll be heading back for a while. That’s sad because I had really enjoyed the place before and it was a favorite place for a bit.

I had trouble finishing my wine so Scott helped me. The pour was just too big for me to push through it quickly!

When we got home, I quickly changed into jammies to snug with my boys. I still felt hungry though.

I cut up an apple and dumped some oat bar (homemade) crumbs on a plate to pick at while we watched HOCKEY! I also had a wee glass of red.

I only had a few slices of apple before calling it quits. My body was like, “No more random food! Let’s just start again tomorrow!” I got through the first two periods of the game and had to hit the hay.

I was worn out! I had such a busy day but it was fantastic and capped off a great week.

I work at Matt the Miller’s and I hate to hear about that experience. Ask for me next time you are in (Rob) and I will be sure you have an awesome experience….by the way there is a reasonable story about the bread…will save it for your next visit!